Leena Rao

She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney's community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was the captain of the women's varsity tennis team. She has also contributed technology content for Oprah.com.

Disclosure: My husband, Suneel Gupta, was previously an employee of Groupon. We hold stock in Facebook. We also have investments in several mutual funds, some of which are technology-focused. And I hold a miniscule amount of shares in AOL, TechCrunch's parent company.

My husband sits on the advisory boards of Adaptly and ToyTalk, and is a shareholder of both companies.

Latest from Leena Rao

Real estate marketplace Zillow announced Q1 earnings this afternoon, with revenue for the quarter increasing by 70% to a record $66.2 million from $39 million in the first quarter of 2013. GAAP loss per share was $0.16 in the first quarter of 2014 with non-GAAP net income per share coming in at $0.02 in the first quarter. Read More

Communications platform for mobile and web apps and Disrupt SF 2013 winner Layer has raised $14.5 million in Series A funding from Homebrew, AME Cloud Ventures (Jerry Yang’s investment vehicle), CrunchFund, Fuel Capital and other investors. We’re hearing from sources that the valuation post-money was in the mid-$60 million range. Read More

On stage at Disrupt NY today, Sequoia partner and Square board member Roelof Botha set the record straight around those rumors that the payments company was in acquisition talks with Google. “There is a lot of misinformation about Square right now…there were no discussions about a sale,” he said. Read More

TheRealReal, an online consignment store for luxury goods, has raised $20 million in Series C funding from DBL Investors, Canaan Partners, InterWest Partners, eVentures, Greycroft, and Expansion Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $43 million.
The service lets consignors sell their designer goods online and get up to 70 percent of the sale price, while customers get… Read More

Recruiting great technical talent is a challenge for small startups, later stage companies and even public tech companies. SV Angel and one of the firm’s new startup, People.co, is launching a new initiative to try to disrupt the technical hiring world. Taking the model of the NFL Combine, Draft.me is a training ground for technical talent and hackers where employers can scout for… Read More

Apple has acquired LuxVue Technology, a stealthy company that had been working on micro-LED, screen technologies, we’ve heard from sources close to the transaction. The company had raised $43 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins, iD Ventures America and others. Apple has given us a statement which reads “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally… Read More

Applying to preschool in San Francisco is not that different from when you may have applied to college 15 years ago. You have to complete a bunch of applications either by hand or print them out from an online application, and then you have to mail them in manually with a check to each school. It’s archaic and fairly frustrating in the highly connected world we live in (I don’t… Read More

We’ve heard that design-focused e-commerce site Fab is planning another round of layoffs. At an internal meeting today, sources tell us that the company said it would be making a decision on the final number of people to be let go by June 1. One rumor floating around is that the company could reduce headcount by another 60 employees. Fab currently has 305 employees worldwide. Read More

Education is one of the last industries that is still going through massive change and disruption with the introduction of technology. In particular, we’ve seen the rise of iPads, the introduction of learning technologies and educational games enter the classroom, but we haven’t actually seen the physical classroom change for children. AltSchool, a new startup aiming to transform… Read More

Kamcord, the SDK that allows gamers to record in-game video on mobile, has raised $7.1 million in Series A funding led by TransLink Capital with participation from SV Angel as well as DeNA, KLab, and M&Y Growth Partners. Existing investors Innovation Works, XG Ventures, and Mark Williamson also participated in the round.
Kamcord’s SDK enables developers to add a feature that will… Read More

OGSystems is announcing an undisclosed amount of funding from VC firm General Catalyst, and the appointment of Tad Elmer, an XIR at the firm and former CEO of BBN Technologies to its board of directors.
As part of GC’s XIR program, former CEOs and founders identify investments in an industry and work alongside founders to provide leadership, mentorship and operational support. The idea… Read More

Farfetch, an online marketplace for independent fashion boutiques, has raised $66 million led by private equity firm Vitruvian Partners, with existing investors Condé Nast International and Advent Ventures also participating in the round. New investor Richard Chen, venture partner at Chinese VC firm Ceyuan, was part of the round. The company had previously raised funding in 2012, led by… Read More

eBay just reported first quarter earnings this afternoon, beating expectations. Non-GAAP earnings increased 11%, to $899 million or $0.70 per diluted share, over the prior year, driven by strong top line growth, says the company. Revenue for the first quarter increased 14% to $4.3 billion, compared to the same period in 2013 Read More

Square has long talked about adding more features to its point of sale system to make it more attractive for large and small merchants to use, and for their customers as well. The company even bought Bookfresh to offer booking services for merchants. Today, the payments company is debuting its order ahead and pickup tool, offline mode and inventory tracking for merchants.
Pickup
We heard a… Read More

Y Combinator-incubated payday loan disruptor LendUp has raised a $50 million credit debt facility from Victory Park Capital. This adds to the $18 million in equity funding LendUp has raised from investors including Google Ventures, Data Collective, QED and others. Read More

New Relic, maker of application monitoring tools for developers, has raised $100 million in funding led by BlackRock, Inc. and Passport Capital with T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and Wellington Management also participating. Read More

Dear RadiumOne Board Members,
In covering the day-to-day launches, funding announcements, and feature additions of tech startups and companies, I rarely think about the founder or CEO of a company’s personal life.
Sure, when it’s a serial entrepreneur, I take note. Or if the founder happens to be a friend, I’ll ask about their kids and families, and trade banter over the… Read More

Slack, a collaboration platform founded by Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, is raising $30 million-plus in new funding, we’ve learned. (Update: the company confirmed the day after we published our scoop that it the final amount was $42.75 million).
For background, Butterfield left Yahoo and started TinySpeck (and a multiplayer game called Glitch) but then decided to take a… Read More

Managing credit and debit cards is still a relatively complicated process. You can control some elements of your cards like accessing your balances and transferring money online, but you can’t turn off cards or set transaction types via the web or from a mobile phone. Ondot Systems, a stealthy company that has raised $18 million in funding, has developed a white-label solution called… Read More